The knock is not loud.
It is polite.
It comes at dawn, when the world is still learning how to wake without instruction.
Not on a door.
Not on a gate.
On the edges of things.
The river pauses mid-flow for half a breath longer than it should. Wind waits before choosing a direction. Even the Unplaced City’s stones still themselves, as if listening.
Kael feels it first.
Not as threat.
As attention.
“Something’s here,” he murmurs, hand resting on the battlement stone.
I nod slowly. “Yes.”
The shadow does not coil.
It watches.
This one remembers manners.
The presence does not arrive in form.
It arrives in question.
A thought presses gently against the shared field, careful not to bruise.
May I speak?
The network shivers.
Rowan stiffens. “That wasn’t Heaven.”
“No,” I whisper
